


No Change of Heart

by Massiel



Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-11 19:53:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/802570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Massiel/pseuds/Massiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's difficult adjusting to life after the curse, and not just for... Adam. His name is Adam. Deep down, Belle knows that only his appearance has changed significantly. Inside, he's still the Beast who noticed she loved books and gave her a library.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Change of Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prosodiical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prosodiical/gifts).



> My prompt was "Beauty and the Beast (Disney) - Belle/Beast, re-learning each other after the curse has ended."  
> That I can do. I'm glad I signed up for the fundraiser, and hopefully my bidder enjoys the piece I ended up writing!

The beautiful castle that Belle had come to realize was her home no longer existed. The foundations remained; structurally it was sound. However, her surroundings had been unavoidably changed when the curse was broken.  Belle knew the people in the castle were fixtures of a different sort now, that fundamentally the only different aspect was their appearance, but accustoming herself to the size of everyone was difficult. She’d rather become used to being the tallest person in the castle, aside from the Beast.

Adam, as she’d since learned his given name. Something else to concern herself with. She worried about a slip of the tongue, calling him by the wrong name, and if that would send him spiraling back into memories he would rather not revisit. At the same time, she would rather not tiptoe around him; they’d come together so well in the months she’d stayed in his castle. Belle was one to speak her mind, though she would measure each word carefully beforehand. But for the first time, she was a bit afraid that her outspokenness would cause pain when it wasn’t her intent. Reciprocating Adam’s kindness with any sort of misgiving was not on her agenda.

At the moment, Belle’s day consisted of cataloguing the books in her library. It might have seemed tedious to Lumiere or Cogsworth, who shook their heads each time she said she was off, but she lived for the moments when occasionally she would catch a glimpse of an intriguing-looking title, and hours would be lost as she sat and devoured first one book, and then several others. She didn’t mean to lose track of time so profoundly. Adam never complained, either, when he didn’t see her until late at night.

Still. Belle was beginning to wonder if she was avoiding Adam because he wasn’t the Beast. What she was less certain of was why she was doing something so irrational – she’d always prided herself on her intellect, her ability to reason. She was incapable of sussing out why she was acting this way.

Acting as if nothing had changed was out of the question; she knew that Adam would see right through her. But perhaps the best way for things to return to normal, and quickly, was to continually remind herself that this _was_ normal now.

So she extricated herself from  her thick tome on the history of the world – really, she was amazed by the events that had occurred over thousands of years – and chose a much smaller, simplified one to take to their chairs near the fireplace, almost on the other side of the castle.

When she arrived, Adam was staring blankly at the dancing flames, head in hand.  She knew that he had seen her approaching – it seemed that he had retained some of the instincts from his Beast-form – and yet he didn’t turn to greet her. It hurt, though she knew she had no right to feel so. Guilt settled in low in her stomach, acting as a dead weight that dragged her back down to earth. Belle’s shoulders drooped as she sat in her chair beside him. Perhaps the reality of the situation was more severe than she had led herself to believe.

“Hello, Adam,” she said quietly. Ordinarily she might have put her hand on his arm in greeting, or something of the sort, but not tonight. The thought occurred to her that perhaps she didn’t deserve to at the moment.

“Belle,” he replied. Still he did not move.

Even his voice was not the voice with which she had come to know him. Free of the curse, his speech was no longer rough or laden with growls. That was not to say that Adam’s human voice, smooth and baritone, was any less capable of being intimidating. But when he was being more gentle and soft-spoken – more and more recently – she found it soothing.

She wished he would have gone on. She didn’t believe that she possessed the courage to begin this particular conversation.

Not a moment later, she laughed quietly to herself. No courage? Had it not been she who had volunteered herself to assume the place of her father in the house of what she had then perceived to be a monster? Yes, she had been terrified then; it was merely a different sort of fear now.

So Belle plunged in headfirst.

“Would you believe that I’m a fool?” she asked.

Adam looked taken aback. “You? Of course not. Who said this?”

“I did.”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “I don’t understand. Why do you think so?”

Belle, fidgety, tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. It had always refused to be restrained, much like her spirit. “Ever since you became…” She searched for a delicate way to put it. “Your original self again, I haven’t felt like you are you. The you that I discovered while you were keeping me in the castle.” Dismayed by her own foolishness, Belle shook her head. “Deep down, I know that’s impossible. If anything I should have remembered what I learned then. What’s inside matters the most.”

“I was wondering what had happened,” Adam replied. Relief was evident in his voice. “Your distance…” He sighed. “I started to think that you were reconsidering your choice.”

“Of course not! I only didn’t know how to proceed from there. You were a new person to me. I wasn’t sure if you would fit in the same ways you did before.”

“To be honest, you are entirely responsible for the ‘new person’ you see now. You remember how I acted before you began to wear me away.”

Belle laughed a little at Adam’s unintended humor. ‘New person,’ indeed. Then her laughter drifted into silence. “I would never need to reconsider you; you understand me. Better than even my father ever has. Remember when I told you the villagers thought I was odd for reading?”  One glance told her that he did, that he probably remembered much more than that. “It always separated me from them, and I allowed it. But you understood why I loved it, you _encouraged_ it.”

“So you’re glad that I chose to learn about you, instead of passing single-minded judgement?” Adam asked. Belle’s eyes widened slightly as she realized the direction the conversation was taking. He nodded, continuing, “You did the same for me. And there’s still more for you to find.”


End file.
